focus, comprehension, and reading speed

TRX
July 1, 2015 at 7:34 PM

> The eye can focus on an area much larger
> than one word. It tends to be an
> elliptical area several centimeters

Now that I'm in my mid-50s I've run into several situations where my focal area / attention spot is noticeably smaller than it used to be. I notice it mostly at the computer, where I only use a small part of the triple-monitor desktop, and when driving, where I've noticed both a tendency to target fixation and a loss of peripheral attention. I had my eyes checked a few months ago; there are no problems with my eyes, just what my brain is doing with the information.

TRX
June 27, 2015 at 2:07 PM

When I was young I was tested at just under a thousand words a minute. The test involved reading various blocks of text and answering questions about what I'd read.

Nowadays I'd be surprised if I go much over 200 for fiction, less depending on what kind of nonfiction.

Back then I was learning, so I vacuumed everything down uncritically. Now I have a fairly detailed model of the world; everything new gets inspected, compared to the model, considered, given an arbitrary weighting of accuracy, and carefully slotted into storage. Nowadays I'm prone to long pauses while I think.